The Pulse by Wharton Digital Health
00:41:04 · Arpan Parikh
[00:41:04] S1: Great question. I think of it in three primary ways. So mechanism one is the motion of building a delightful and magical consumer product, which is what Kin is, is very different from building enterprise SaaS software. And I think of the clinical scribe and EHR companies as primarily enterprise b to b SaaS software companies. And if they've shown us anything without naming names, the largest EHR in the country and their patient facing products has a negative net promoter score. Right? So, like, they've proven that they don't have the capability of building beautiful, magical consumer experiences. On the other hand, we've built a product that even the 85 year old who's never used ChatGPT or or Claude absolutely loves. And when we interview our users, like, they tell us things like you will not pry Kin from, like, my dead hands. Like, that is the level of love they have for the product. So I think that's a big, really big piece. It's a special competency as a company to be able to build this type of product. Okay, number two is trust, right? There's something to Kin about being a business literally built by two double board certified practicing physicians for patients, right? And we've leaned into that because it's a very valid piece of our story in DNA, right? And when you think about tools and products that Americans use for their healthcare, trust is probably the most valuable currency, Right? And now think about the Frontier Labs, think about the electronic health records, and think about the clinical scribes. Either across all of those, there's... One of two things is true. Either there's neither a positive nor negative association from a trust perspective because, like, the consumer doesn't even know about them. Like, most Americans don't know what Heidi or a Bridge or Ambience or Freed are, honestly speaking. Right? Or for some of them, Americans probably have a net negative perspective from a... From the trust angle. Right? And and when it's negative for a massive behemoth company, it's really hard to, like, steer that ship in the opposite direction and even get it back to neutral, let alone, like, the super positive side we have it on. So trust is number two. And then number three is is distribution. Right?
00:43:20 · Arpan Parikh, Chase
And I think this is true for a lot of businesses in this in this era, software businesses, right, is software in and of itself, generally speaking, is not like super defensible. But what's defensible is how you get into the hands of your users or customers. And again, like this emotion we've built and proven in our scaling of being the trusted tool that healthcare professionals and health plans proactively tell their patients about is really, really hard to match. Right? I would bet a pretty significant sum that no time soon will US physicians be telling their patients as they're leaving the office, like, I'll see you back in six months. And by the way, if you have any questions that come up between now and then, like, please ask ChatGPT before you come back to see me. Like, I guarantee that's not happening anywhere in the country. Right? On the other hand, every day, there are hundreds of, if not thousands of people across the country who are being told by their healthcare professionals, like, you should download this and you should use it when you walk out of here, which is an incredibly defensible moat. [00:44:28] S0: Yeah. No, I definitely think your specialization and your focus on the patient is a huge, huge driver in terms of your competitive advantage in that area.
00:44:28 · Chase, Arpan Parikh
[00:44:28] S0: Yeah. No, I definitely think your specialization and your focus on the patient is a huge, huge driver in terms of your competitive advantage in that area. [00:44:39] S1: Yeah. I mean, I will say most of the companies you name, like, they have either on a relative basis or an absolute basis unlimited money. Right? So they could make the decision that this is something they want to build. And like, we would... And that would... That does keep me up at night. Right? I'm not gonna say like our moats are impenetrable, but we do think the combination of what we have plus our being the first mover and like defining the category and now having a lead in this space is gonna make it hard for others to catch up. [00:45:10] S0: Yep. Yeah. And just because those other companies might try, doesn't mean it will be successful. [00:45:15] S1: So Of course. Of course. [00:45:16] S0: Kind of a different flavor of a question, but curious what your approach has been to finding strategic partners. So I know that beyond your founding team, Ken has a really strong group of partners and advisers like Doug and Trevor from GoodRx. And then more recently, I saw Sachin Jain from Scan Health. So curious, you know, how you went about finding them in the in the first place, and then what sorts of decisions are you consulting them on?
00:45:42 · Arpan Parikh
[00:45:42] S1: Yeah. It's a good question. So, you know, over the course of the last six or seven years post business school, I've been very lucky to have incredible friends and mentors and colleagues, you know, across the healthcare, health tech, and innovation ecosystem. So as we were getting Kin off the ground and now as we're scaling it, you know, it's been very natural, and I personally sort of sit on the commercial go to market and growth side of the business, right, to think about who are the people who we can align with that, number one, think about this problem the same way we do. Number two, are going to bring a patient obsession to the problem the same way we do. And number three will be accretive to the business. Right? And so with Doug and Trevor, it's like, I I would argue that GoodRx is the single most successful consumer health company to ever exist, period. Right? And they have been obsessing about the idea of empowering patients, like for more than a decade, right? It's like they checked all the boxes and they've built very successful businesses in the past and not just GoodRx, like their story pre GoodRx is also pretty incredible. So that was a very easy decision when they asked us to join the team. And interestingly with Sachin, it was actually kind of similar. Right? I think he is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and preeminent physician leaders in the country, someone I certainly have looked up to both a professional perspective and I've been lucky to call a colleague and mentor. And, you know, when I told him about Kin, he was like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like, how do I get involved in this? Right? So it's like, you want people on your team who are so excited by it that, like, you don't have to pitch them or sell them on anything. Right? And and they are asking you how they can help you because they like the vision and the idea so much. You know? So Doug and Trevor are still very involved. Trevor is an incredible business builder, and he helps and sits with me a lot on the commercial and growth side. You know, Doug is an incredible product leader and has had very senior roles across a number of very big tech companies over the last fifteen or twenty years. And so he's a very close partner to our entire product org. And then given such and see, like he works super closely with me now on partnerships, right?
00:47:53 · Arpan Parikh, Chase
He knows that entire space so well, particularly on the health plan side and on the risk bearing care delivery side. So I would say we've been very intentional, but also very lucky to have partners and advisers like those three. [00:48:06] S0: Yeah. Yeah. No. That's great. Okay. We only have a couple minutes left, so I think we can move into closing section. [00:48:14] S1: Yeah. [00:48:14] S0: Obviously, you were getting your MBA from Wharton, you know, sitting in the same seats that many of us are sitting in now and have gone on to have multiple, you know, successful roles at health care companies now starting your own business. So what advice would you give to folks who are interested in either starting their own business or joining an early stage startup in the healthcare space?
00:48:37 · Arpan Parikh
[00:48:37] S1: Yeah. Two good questions. So number one is make the most of your time on campus and in school and invest in relationships. Like, when I look back on it, like, yes, I did learn a lot during school, probably more than the average, you know, classmate I had. But what has been exponentially more powerful for me are the relationships I made. Right? And that's, like, both direct and indirect. So, like, don't under index or undervalue the importance and ROI on that. And number two, given this era that we're in, and now I'm speaking with, like, the hiring hat on, like, we've hired a dozen plus people, right, in the last six months alone, there's a very real and palpable divide in the employment pool in this country of folks who are AI pilled versus not. And when thinking about joining an early stage business, which inevitably has to be AI pilled in 2026 to succeed or starting your own thing, I think there's nothing more valuable than than having a strong point of view and experience with it. So spend the next, you know, ten months if you're a second year or year and ten months if you're a first year, really playing with it and building your own things. And you don't have to build a company while you're in school, but, like, build an agent to, like, you know, buy your tickets to the hard to get party that sells out in thirty seconds. Right? When the... If that's still a thing at Penn and if that's, you know, allowed. But doing those things and having those reps is both, number one, helpful to have a POV on, like, how these tools work and what they are. And number two, it's a very, very legitimate and real thing that any smart company or CEO is screening for when trying to hire, like, incredible talent at an early stage company.